France: Two Female Police Officers Shot Dead

French police say a man has confessed to killing two female paramilitary gendarmes who were shot dead with a gun belonging to one of them.

The officers, who were aged 29 and 35, were killed in the village of Collobrieres, in the Maures mountains near the southeastern town of Toulon.

It is believed to be the first time two female gendarmes have been killed in the same incident in France.

And Toulon prosecutor Xavier Tarabeaux told a news conference that a suspect - who he said had recently completed a six-year stretch in prison - had confessed to the killings.

The man matching the description of the killer - aged 30, tall, well built and with a shaved head - was arrested in the village after a manhunt involving 300 people.

A police spokesman for the local Paca region said the force was "deeply shocked." The elder victim, Audrey Berthaut, had two daughters aged five and 13 while the other, Alicia Champlon, was another gendarme's partner.

The pair had reportedly intervened in an argument involving an alleged burglar.

The attacker - who investigators say appeared to be drunk - apparently knocked one of the police officers over, took her gun and shot her, before pursuing the other gendarme and killing her in a nearby square.